Hospital in the Home

Today was my third day of midwives visiting me at home. It's a pretty incredible service really. A midwife arrives with a suitcase full of tricks. They unpack what is basically a mini hospital room on the living room floor.

Today started with a swab that, kindly, the midwives had me perform on myself. Just take this cotton bud and wipe it from your vagina, along your perineum to your anus. Ah, yep...sure thing.

I then lay on the couch while a whole host of familiar cords were attached to me. Two flat plates were attached to my belly with elastic straps. One measures baby's heart rate and the other measures any contractions that might be happening. A pulse oximeter was attached to my middle finger and a blood pressure cuff was stretched around my arm. Finally, I was given a button to press every time I felt baby moved.

This monitoring process goes on for about half an hour and today, the blood pressure cuff was removed just so the midwife could add to the whole spectacle by performing a blood test as I lay there on my own couch in my lounge room. What a thing!

I answered the same questions about the amount and smell of the fluid leaking from me and answered more questions about if I was feeling flu-like or had had any tightenings that might signal labour. Being on constant alert for such tiny changes to my body was absolutely exhausting. Fear is exhausting.

For three days the midwives have said goodbye with a "Well, I'll see you back here tomorrow if you're not back in hospital," kind of attitude. Today was no different. And so I waved off the midwife and went back to sitting around, trying not to panic every time I felt a trickle of baby's amniotic fluid leak out of me.